Luigi’s Lucubrations

“To Albertini, The Great War was not caused by imperialism, militarism, nationalism, the jingoist press, or entangling alliances, the five suspects usually rounded up by historians of lesser industry. The war was caused by individuals.”—Sanford Rose

Dolors & Sense

By Sanford Rose

KISSIMMEE Florida—(Weekly Hubris)—12/16/2013—Luigi Albertini wrote the only history book that will never become obsolete.

That’s because, in the course of writing a 2,200-page, three-volume tome on the origins of World War I, Albertini examined thousands of documents in the archives of six countries during the 1930s.

The task can never be replicated. Many of the documents did not survive the destruction of World War II.

Neither did Albertini.

His work, The Origins of the War of 1914, is purely diplomatic history. There is no geopolitical or economic analysis. There are no great causes to be assessed.

To Albertini, the war was not caused by imperialism, militarism, nationalism, the jingoist press, or entangling alliances, the five suspects usually rounded up by historians of lesser industry.

The war was caused by individuals.

Operating under the influence of impersonal forces, to be sure. But nonetheless individuals, the mix of whose peculiar strengths and weaknesses ended up pushing the world into the cauldron.

There were weak men who wanted to appear strong, and whose show of strength in the crisis of July, 1914, like the religious zeal of the newly converted, was fatally exaggerated.

Such a man was Count Leopold Berchtold, the Austrian foreign minister. As described and documented by Albertini, Berchtold was a man who had previously appeared to entertain no firm opinions. A lover of the turf, he never missed a race, however exigent the demands of office. When asked his views on a particular point of policy, he routinely pressed a button on his desk, saying: “Baron Macchio is an expert on this; I will call him in.” Or, “This matter is the concern of Count Hoyos; he will be here presently.”

Yet, after the assassination of the archduke, on June 28, a changed Berchtold emerges. He espouses the view that the only way to save the Dual Monarchy is to crush Serbia. He prepares (or rather has Baron Musulin prepare) an ultimatum that he is confident Serbia cannot accept. He pushes his notorious war-mongering army chief of staff, Conrad, to accelerate military preparations.

When the Kaiser becomes alarmed in late July at the threat of imminent war, and the German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, at the behest of his royal master, tries to get Austria to agree to mediation of its Serbian quarrel, Berchtold will have none of it. He won’t answer Bethmann-Hollweg’s wires. And, on July 28, he declares war on Serbia, aborting all mediation efforts.

Albertini documents the case of another weak man trying to demonstrate strength, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Sazonov, mentioned in my posting of November 30.

The indefatigable Albertini unearthed the following description of Sazonov in 1912 by a French diplomat who knew him:

“He arouses the hopes of some and the covetousness of others in regard to the Ottoman Empire. He thoughtlessly unchains the tempest; then suddenly, scared of his action, he throws up his plans, reins in the appetites which he himself has whetted, abruptly calling to a halt the actions of nations that he has set in motion, and thus creates a general state of disorder and nervous over-excitement in both parts of the Balkans, out of which Heaven knows what may emerge. In less than a year he has turned the Balkan peninsula topsy-turvy.”

But in July, 1914, Sazonov was no longer “scared of his action.” He demands that Austria withdraw its ultimatum to Serbia and, following Austria’s refusal and declaration of war, Sazonov sets in train the Russian mobilization that triggers Germany’s declaration of war.

Albertini did not chronicle that war. Just its very human origins.

Note: Franciso Goya’s work, “The Flesh Eating Vulture,” from “The Disasters of War,” illustrates this essay. The image may be found at: http://ayay.co.uk/background/paintings/francisco_goya/the-flesh-eating-vulture-from-the-disasters-of-war/.